dog-gone it, joe!

Dear Sarah Palin,

Your accent and "downhome" quips made me want to ram my head through my windshield as I drove down I-81 on my way home from class. Your voice is like nails on a freaking chalkboard.

Love,

Kate

P.S. Ronald Reagan? Really?

Celtic Thunder

The local PBS, WSKG is running another funding campaign and they are TOUTING Celtic Thunder to the MAX. I have seen not one but TWO nights of this musical group. It sucks me in. The music could only be appreciated by someone who giggled through the likes of the movie The Notebook.

One of my favorite lines is during a song which a man is singing to his wife. The chorus goes:

Life is an ocean, love is a boat
In troubled waters it keeps us afloat
When we started our voyage
There was just me and you
Now gathered 'round us we have our own crew

I mean, really. That is freaking poetry. By that I mean poetry written by a middle schooler in love. Ha. I spent the half hour I first spent watching this giggling and saying "Nick, did you HEAR THAT?" and repeating the lines. And they sing so seriously and also have some hand motions to go with it. I mean, I love these guys, for the mere fact that they are SO CORNY!!!

And you should SEE THE AUDIENCE! These people are IN TO IT. During one song they sing they show an audience member, about 13 with tears STREAMING down her face.

But I couldn't turn my head away. This is because the men singing this song are my favorite kind, Irish. Seriously. I told Nick, THESE ARE YOUR PEOPLE AND THEY LOOK LIKE YOU! He disagrees but I beg to differ.

penn state slippers

I keep throwing my fluffy penn state slipper at the debates. Thank the HP its so soft.

Just remember my friend, who within an hour of returning from his second tour in Afghanistan, remarked "Afghanistan is the forgotten war."


Thank the HP I can't reach through the TV and strangle presidential candidates. I'd currently totally be in jail.

a quickie before work...

...a metaphorical one, that is. One full of words like you are reading.

Yesterday I left work and immediately drove to Cortland to roam around the library and do some preliminary research for my oral presentation (i guess) and my paper. As I was telling Karli, it's not easy to come up with a topic for a research paper when you've merely read 15 poems (from 2 poets) and you're writing a 20 pager.

So I did my favorite thing: i just roamed the shelves that contained the Romantic writers.

Two big finds:

A) A book of Percy Bysshe Shelley's notes. IN HIS WRITING! It was like I opened a treasure. Why am I research Shelley, you ask? Because I'm speaking on To a Skylark a piece by both Wordsworth and Shelley and comparing the two. ROCK!! :)

B) The words: Near Escapism with the conclusion of Tragic Reality.

Seriously, the beauty of those words. Really I just found the last two and came up with the rest on my drive home. The drive which I took in complete silence contemplating the fact that I was back in the library, doing research. Which is like eating a juicy peach for me. Perfect beautiful delicious TANTALIZING.

I chose all my books, a stack of about 8, took them to a large table by a window overlooking the gorgeous rolling mountains of Upstate NY that had the waning autumn daylight shining upon them and ruffled through them.

Please, if there is an HP, please help me find a way to do this and get paid!


happy friday, y'all!

Occupational Hazards

I am a drippy little girl today. By that I mean I have gone through almost two boxes of tissues and over a hundred gallons of OJ in the past two days and I'm still sitting here coughing and yucky. It happens when you have 14 adorable little spouts of mucus that you teach everyday, that you are in close proximation to for 8 hours, five days a week. Pair that with running around like a mad woman for the past 2 weeks and you get... kate home sick the fifth week of school. I hate calling in sick.

I think I called in 3 times in the 3+ years I was at the BUX...

But that's neither here nor there... you're probably wondering about that last post. I'll keep it as short as possible. That Saturday my grandpa had a stroke. He's doing alright but he's my grandpa and he had a stroke and that is not okay with me. I spent Sunday at the Angel of Hope dedication. You can follow the link for more information on the statue but it is meant to be a place of mourning for parents who have lost their "angels." Needless to say, it was a VERY emotional ceremony. My family was there because a brick was being dedicated to our Uncle Johnny who passed when he was 3 from cancer. It was heart breaking to see friends there who have also lost siblings and their children.



It was a crazy busy week last week. I was at the hospital most evenings.

Our butterfly emerged last Wednesday and we released it Thursday. Here's a snap of my little loves waiting for the butterfly to fly away.




The picture of it flying away wasn't as good as the last one I took: HAHAHA!


Audrey and Spero were up this weekend to see Gpa and so we chilled with them on Friday night. Saturday we went to the last day game at Yankee Stadium.



It was a beautiful day with great friends and a game which the Yanks won. I was, of course, teary at the game. I turned around at the top of our section and looked down at the field one last time. I had waited so long to see that field and finally, after college, was able to see it. Close up. Like, 6 rows from the field. (This is me walking in for the first time in 2005)



The coolest part of the day was that, as I was walking down down down the ramps to leave Yankee Stadium for the last time I feel someone bump my left arm. WTF, I thought, I'm gonna have to hurt someone. I look over and it's my friend, JD from HIGH SCHOOL. We've kept in touch over the years but he lives in Annapolis now. seriously? I couldn't believe in a sea of 50,000+ people he found me. Just goes to show you... there are some people in this world that you are just meant to always know.

one last look at, what I am referring to as, Yankee Stadium I.

this has been the most emotionally draining 36 hours I've had in a really long time.

full moons can sometimes really suck.

this is you.

I wish I could show you a picture of the little boy who drew this rendition of me. I cannot tell you how precious this child is with his big eyes and eyelashes and his little boy voice. I wish I could describe him to you properly, as only an almost-master of English would...but confidentiality prevents me from doing so. But let me say this, when this little boy, who I adore, who my heart breaks for, turns to the first page in his notebook scribbles with his fat purple marker then looks up at me and says "this is you"... suddenly, in a moment i realize, he's right. this is me. this child, this classroom, this life that years ago i would have "poo-poo"ed. this is me. and it's a me i never thought would be. i never thought i could have wanted to be.

who knew?

...sometimes i even surprise myself.